Of Meat and Prepackaged Miracles

“Mankind is so far removed from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life, while asking for ‘proof’ of divinity that is seen in a thousand ways a minute, that it must be embarrassing to the peanut which isn’t quite as nutty.”-Colorstorm over at The Lion’s Den

I grew up with sustenance living, hunting, fishing, gathering. It’s somewhat amusing, today a big fad is learning how to live off the grid, how to produce your own food. I’ve spent an entire lifetime trying to figure out how to get back  ON the grid. I have an affection for hot running water and electricity. I’m also fond of mangoes in the midst of winter and fancy imported coffee.

“Mankind is so far removed from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life,” Yes, precisely, and so we go to the grocery store and buy our prepackaged steak, wrapped in cellophane, completely removed from the animal it came from, the butcher that prepared it, or the Creator that made it. There is no God, our dinner just miraculously arrived on the shelf, having spontaneously sprung forth from nothingness after a random series of events that magically caused it to be wrapped in cellophane and prepared for us.

Something changes inside of you when you have to kill your own food, and awareness of life and death perhaps, a connection to the Source that gives us our being, a keen understanding that life itself is really quite miraculous, and fragile, too. Perhaps an awareness that life is not all there is, that even in our absence existence continues, it marches on without us. Reality is not defined by our awareness of it, it can exist outside of us, beyond our being.

I’ve slaughtered perhaps a thousand fish, a few dozen chickens and rabbits, and helped to dress deer and elk. Not to gross anyone out, but it takes about two seconds of observing the inner workings of animals to realize there is no way this creature just randomly evolved from nothingness. This is not just pointless coincidence going on internally, anatomically, this is elaborate, deliberate, and delicate, design.

If you have evidence of a design, you have evidence of a Designer. Contrary to what it feels like to us in the grocery store, nothing just spontaneously and magically arrived on those shelves for our good pleasure.

In the modern world, especially the West,  we can become very disconnected from seeing the daily miracles in this thing called life. I myself frequently turn on a hot water faucet and think, magic! But then I remind myself that hot running water in my life is  actually miraculous and that behind the scenes there is a whole slew of somewhat invisible labor that went into producing such a wonder. It would be very silly indeed, to become so entitled that we think hot water is natural, normal, devoid of a Creator, something that just appears when we turn on a faucet and yet that is precisely what most of us do. The same is true of electricity. I am deeply offended when I plug something in and nothing happens. Where’s my magic?

We are somewhat disconnected from our own biology here in the West, comfortable, insulated from the truth and reality of our existence. It can be very challenging to see the daily miracles in this thing called life. Whether you are directly connected to plants or animals as the source of your food, such awareness often changes your perceptions of things. There is life and death in living things, there is this whole plane of existence going on beyond ourselves and our ability to perceive it.

There are daily miracles to be found in this thing called life and where there is evidence of miracles there is also evidence of  a Miracle maker. He is strong meat, an unpackaged miracle, the Bread of Life. To not understand this truly would embarrass our nutty little peanut, if a peanut had the eyes to see and still refused to use them.